What I Didn’t Get For Christmas

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Next year, maybe??

Road Trip pictures

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So here are the pictures I took on the road trip to Yuma.  I didn’t take too many, and most of them are of the prison museum at Yuma.

Three days, 900 miles, snow on the Grapevine (the highway, not the plant), huge, towering dust storms starting in Palm Springs and continuing to Yuma, wrong turns in Indio and El Centro, seeing the border fence from I-8 west of Yuma, seeing Border Patrol units all over the place…

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Yuma, Arizona. Almost a spur-of-the-moment road trip

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So a buddy from Ohio is in Arizona for a week visiting relatives, and he makes the mistake of saying “you should come to Arizona!”  I gave him several chances to withdraw the invitation, he refused, so here I am, in Yuma!

Dinner tonight was a good old fashioned hamburger, fries, and a Coke, at a 50’s style diner.  Right down to the chrome barstools, and 50’s music on the jukebox.

Tonight at the Wingate Hotel, tomorrow wasting time with Roman, tomorrow night in the hotel, then home in time for Christmas Eve.  (It doesn’t start till sundown, technically, and I’ll roll in sometime after dark, but close enough!)

(update: I actually rolled in about an hour before dark, so I made it home before Christmas Eve started.  At least Christmas Eve Pacific Time!)

456 miles.  8 hours, 20 minutes on the road.  31 MPG.  In a 2005 Taurus!  Not too shabby.

The weirdest thing so far?  Fine dust blowing across the road like fog.  Big windstorms starting in Palm Springs,  well, windstorms all over, but raising dust like crazy starting at PS.  Dust snaking across the road in front of me,  going almost as fast as I was!  I’ll have to get a new air filter for the car when I get home, it’s going to be full of fine dust.

Second weirdest thing?  Wal-Mart parking lot in Blythe.  (Taco Bell.  I didn’t go into Wallyworld) They need to ban plastic bags there, too.  The fence along the street was a 3 ft chain link…  it was solid plastic bags pinned solid to the mesh of the fencing.  Wind was picking them all up and plastering them to the fences up and down the roads.  Looked really bad.  Plastic bags have got to go.

Also saw a tumble weed on the Grapevine commit suicide by jumping in front of a speeding mini-van.  Pretty much exploded.  Saw another one racing the cars, rolling along the center divider shoulder, and doing a pretty good job of keeping up!

Snow on the ground going over the pass, but fortunately the roads were clear by the time I got there.  CHP had been escorting cars earlier, and they had completely closed it at one point last night.  Lucky me, didn’t have to detour, or wait.

Holiday Dinner at Ted and Mychal’s

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Ted and Mychal hosted an intimate holiday dinner Saturday night at their condo in Fresno.  A small group of friends got together for some of Mychal and Ted’s great cooking!  Chicken, beef, vegetables, mashed potatoes that may have been the best ever, and desert that was a little bit of heaven.

Ted made a banana pudding for me, since I had been talking about a holiday tradition in our family, but this was something else!  It definitely wasn’t my momma’s banana pudding!  Mom’s was always great, and I love it, but this was something new.  Very tasty, Ted will have to make it more often, now that he’s hooked me on it!

Some more pics after the jump.

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Survey says…

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Think of a random person, and give them a message here, no names:
You’re supposed to be the IT person, so fix the damned computers!

Can you take a bra off with one hand?
LOL…  never tried. Is it difficult?

Last furry thing you touched:
A german shepard. A big one. Thank goodness she’s friendly.

Spell your name without vowels:
Jmm Rvs

Do you wanna get married anytime soon?
No, I’m too young to get married.

Have you ever kissed someone in a band?
He used to be in a band, does that count?

When you looked in the mirror today, what was your first thought?
Who is that old man, and where is he hiding me?
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T-minus 2 Days, and Counting!

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Launching December 18, 2009!

How I spent my weekend

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Well, an interesting weekend, no doubt.  Friday began my three days off pretty slowly.  In fact, I really don’t recall exactly what I did, other than be lazy and play on the computer.  Oh, wait, it’s coming back to me, now that I think about it a bit.   I watched the news, then switched over to ScyFy (damn, I hate that new name) to catch Stargate Universe, and Sanctuary.  Unfortunately, SG Universe skipped a week, so it was a repeat of last week’s Sanctuary, then the new episode.  Fun seeing Michael Shanks back on the screen, cute crack about Amanda Tapping’s hair.  More dinking around online, and some DVDs.  Watched Life Free or Die Hard. Again. Not bad.

Saturday was much more interesting.  It started off with a bang.  Or, more correctly, a crash.  I was sitting in my computer room/radio shack when I heard something nearby make a loud crashing noise.  I looked out back, thinking the fence the next door neighbor had replaced after it fell in October might have died again, but it seemed OK.  I checked out front, but couldn’t find anything, so I wrote it off to some debris settling noisily next door, where they are renovating the house.  By this time, Ted had messaged me, inviting my up to Fresno for dinner, then clubbing.  Never one to pass on a visit with Ted, I headed up that way.  Dinner at Ted and Mychal’s, some tv, and then off to the North Tower Circle in Fresno.  They had go-go boys!  The picture is not of the guys dancing that night, but it gives you an idea.  Two guys, one hispanic, one asian, both very hot.  Even a go-go girl, for the ladies.  Any straight guy would have thought she was super hot,  even I appreciated the scenery!  Met some interesting people there, they had quite the crowd.  We stayed till closing, then back to Ted’s.  It was about 2:30 when we arrived, so I expected to say goodnight and head on home, but for some reason Ted turned on the DVR, and we started watching a Criminal Minds program about FBI profilers.  About half-way through, I noticed Ted, Mychal,  and the puppies Eva and Jasmine were one big pile, all sound asleep on the couch!  Well, they had gotten me wrapped up in the program, so I just sat there watching it until it was done.  Then I woke them all up to say good bye, at almost 4am!  That’s waaaay past all of their bedtimes! Home again, and bed.  Before I went to sleep, though, my cousin, as he was getting up, asked me if I saw where the tree had fallen in the back yard.  Sooo….  THAT’s what the crash was!  I told him I’d look at it later, as I was going to bed.

Sunday, I got up early, dragged myself out of bed, actually, to get to Tulare by 2pm for a meeting of the Tulare County Atheists.  Had a nice chat with a few people.  I was expecting more of a turnout, since I had posted a blog on the Visalia Times Delta’s online site, and posted a notice on the TCA’s wordpress blog site.  Back home,  I pulled the tree off of the fence and cut some limbs off.  I took a nap, which I seldom do, and then dinner.  The rest of the evening was spent watching Oprah’s Whitehouse special, the news, then a Star Trek movie DVD and doing laundry.  Now I’m done, and going to bed!

All in all, not a bad weekend at Casa De Jimbo.

Hey! Isn’t this California??

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WTF??   It’s not even winter yet, and it’s freakin’  freezing around here!  I’m a California boy…  this kind of cold is only supposed to happen up in the mountains, where it can be visited by those who find the Arctic a balmy part of the planet!  I want my summer back!

Adam Lambert

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Adam has a great voice, and I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more of him!  (and he’s cute, too!)

Edit Jan 4, 2010:  The video provider added a commercial to the beginning of the video… it wasn’t there when I first posted it!